She worked until late in the evening and then went out to La Vie Parisienne as she had promised Suzy she would.
The nightclub was buzzing. As she pushed her way through the noisy crowd at the door, a very handsome blonde man holding a cigar and wearing an impeccable evening suit came up to her. It wasn’t until she was suddenly kissed full on the lips that she realised the ‘man’ was Suzy Solidor.
‘You came! Welcome to my little establishment. Michel, take care of Miss Copper.’ Suzy handed her over to the head waiter, who smilingly led Copper to a table near the stage and put a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket on her table. This was five-star service, indeed.
Dior was there in the company of a melting young man named Maurice, and there was the usual crowd of artists and writers, including a sombre-looking couple who Dior told her were Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. And she realised with a start that the simian man with the dark, staring eyes who was sitting beside a strikingly handsome woman at the next table was undoubtedly Pablo Picasso. As if wanting to confirm his identity, he was scrawling idly on a napkin with a stub of crayon, listening to the chattering people around him. He had no sooner finished the scribble than a waiter adroitly snatched up the napkin and made off with it triumphantly, no doubt to sell it for a fistful of dollars to some collector.
As though she had been waiting only for Copper’s arrival, Suzy now stepped into the spotlight, graciously acknowledging the applause.
She kicked off with ‘Lili Marlène’, sung defiantly in her throbbing tenor. Copper watched the chanteuse intently throughout the performance, her chin cupped in her hand, oblivious to anything else. Even in this sunless winter, she appeared to have stepped straight off a beach on the Côte d’Azur.
‘She’s rather spectacular, isn’t she?’ Copper asked Dior. She was literally starry-eyed; she’d had a few glasses of champagne, and her green eyes reflected the lights brilliantly.
‘Oh, she’s colossal,’ Dior said.
‘It’s awful what they’re doing to her,’ Dior’s companion, Maurice, put in. Dior’s fingers were clasped fondly in Maurice’s. Copper noticed that Maurice’s fingernails were varnished pink. ‘So cruel.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Copper asked curiously.
‘The épuration légale are going to charge her with collaborating and giving support to the enemy.’
‘Just because she sang “Lili Marlène”?’
‘Well, perhaps it was rather more than that,’ Dior said diplomatically. ‘She said some unwise things.’
‘At least she can’t be accused of having slept with any German officers,’ Maurice said with a titter.
Copper frowned. ‘Now that the Germans have gone, I think everybody should forgive and forget whatever happened.’
‘No chance of that,’ Dior replied. ‘Nowadays, everyone wants to point the finger at his neighbour and say, “He collaborated, but I was a hero.”’
‘Human nature, I suppose.’ Copper sighed.
‘Exactement,’ Dior said. ‘We all rewrite our own histories.’ He leaned over to her confidentially. ‘Your gown is almost ready,’ he murmured.
‘Oh, how exciting!’
‘Come for the fitting whenever you’re free.’
‘I will,’ she promised.
The rest of Suzy Solidor’s act was hardly less provocative. She did several more numbers dressed as a man, another in a sailor suit with a chorus of matelots, and another almost in the nude, her glorious body covered only by scraps of gold in what Pearl would have called the strategic areas. Her voice descended to guttural notes and erotic growls. It was sometimes hard to tell whether she was a man or a woman; and it seemed to Copper that some of the songs were directed at her. As she took in her surroundings, Copper felt that few of the people around her were definable as men or women; most were somewhere on a spectrum between the two sexes.
After her performance, the singer draped an ermine stole around her magnificent shoulders and toured the room, moving from table to table like a queen.
The burly figure of Ernest Hemingway loomed over their table. He was wearing his usual stained and faded khaki shirt.
‘They tell me you’re hanging out your shingle as a journalist?’ he boomed at Copper.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s a whore’s trade.’ He hauled out the chair next to her, almost knocking poor Maurice on to the floor, and sat down heavily beside Copper. ‘Honey, I can teach you how to whore.’ He leaned forward, blasting her with absinthe-laden breath. ‘No better teacher.’
‘You’re drunk, Mr Hemingway.’
‘I hope so. I’m drunk and I’m available. Room 117 at the Ritz. Come up and see me later tonight.’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Scared?’
‘Not in the slightest.’
Suzy Solidor now arrived at their table, along with a fresh tray of champagne bottles and glasses. Also on the tray was a package wrapped in tissue paper with a satin ribbon. Suzy handed it to Copper. ‘A gift for you, chérie.’
Surprised by the gift, she unwrapped it. It turned out to be an ornately bound copy of Verlaine’s poetry. ‘Thank you, Suzy,’ Copper said, admiring the sumptuous, gilded leather cover.
Hemingway let out a belly laugh. ‘Is that the way things are? I wondered what went wrong between you and Amory. You’ll be better off in my room at the Ritz, honey,’ he said to Copper. ‘Just knock three times. I’ll corrupt you, but not in the way this dyke intends.’
‘I don’t want to be corrupted by anybody,’ Copper said angrily.
‘She’ll have you cutting that flaming red hair short and wearing boys’ clothes. What a damned shame that would be.’
‘There are worse fates,’ Suzy said.
‘Tell you what, Suzy,’ Hemingway said. ‘I’ll take her first tonight. You can have her tomorrow night. And on Monday morning, we’ll ask her to judge between us.’
Copper could bear no more of this. She got to her feet. ‘I’m going home.’
‘Don’t go,’ Suzy said, but she was already hurrying away.
‘The Ritz, room 117,’ Hemingway boomed after her. ‘Don’t forget.’
Copper got back home feeling miserable. Between them, Suzy and Hemingway had ruined her evening. She had separated from her husband, but that didn’t mean she was fair game for anybody to insult. Being fought over by those two giant egos had been intolerable. Paradoxically, it made her long for the respectable state of being married.
‘You’re home early,’ Pearl commented. She was sitting huddled in her dressing gown with a teach-yourself-bookkeeping manual. She was still shivering and pale, but she’d made an attempt to clean herself up. Her hair was in curlers (which explained where those bouncy ringlets came from). ‘Had fun?’
‘Not exactly.’ Pearl was not someone she wanted to let into her confidence, but there was nobody else. She gave Pearl a brief account of the evening. Pearl had got hold of the Verlaine poems and was reading them, bleary-eyed.
‘Here,’ she exclaimed. ‘You think I’m a bad lot? This stuff is just nasty.’
‘I haven’t read any of it.’
‘Well, if you think a couple of naughty photos are wicked, you’d best stay away from this. It’s corrupting.’
‘You’re a fine one to talk about corruption.’
‘Whatever I’ve done,’ Pearl said with dignity, ‘was at least normal. Sex between two women isn’t normal. It’s unnatural.’
‘You’re the expert on sex, I guess,’ Copper said dryly.
‘In a way.’ She mopped her streaming nose and eyes. ‘Besides, I know Suzy Solidor. She’s dangerous.’
Copper snorted. ‘In what way is Suzy dangerous?’
‘Once she gets her hooks into you, she won’t let go. If you fall into her clutches, no man will ever look at you again. It’ll follow you for the rest of your life.’
‘Isn’t that a bit rich, coming from you?’
‘I’m talking to you from experience,’ Pearl
replied. ‘I know what it’s like to have done things you regret.’
‘Well, before you give me any more lectures, let me assure you that I am not in Suzy’s clutches, as you put it. I’m not in anybody’s clutches. I’m still getting over Amory.’
She took herself – and Verlaine – to bed. Reading through the poems, she was startled by their explicit descriptions of lesbian sex. She’d thought herself quite worldly-wise, but she must have been a lot more innocent than she supposed.
She laid the book aside and switched off the light. In her mind, the golden image of Suzy Solidor floated seductively, neither fully male nor fully female. Despite the coldness of the evening, she grew so hot that she had to kick off her blankets. She tried to compose herself for sleep, despite the distraction of Pearl coughing wretchedly in her room next door.
She was awoken with a start. Someone was pounding on the door of the apartment. Thinking that the apartment block must be burning down, Copper leaped out of bed, belting on her dressing gown.
She ran to the door, but before she could open it, Pearl appeared beside her and grabbed her arm.
‘It’s Petrus. Don’t open it.’
‘Petrus?’
‘My boyfriend.’ Pearl’s face was white. ‘I don’t know how he found out where I am.’
Copper stared at the door, which was shaking under the hammering fists of the furious Petrus. ‘I’ll call the police.’
‘No! They’ll arrest me.’
‘Well, what are we going to do?’
The hammering paused for a moment. They heard a hoarse voice shout, in bad French, ‘Eh, I hear you. I hear you in there. Open!’
Pearl laid a finger on her lips, her eyes so wide that Copper could see the whites all around the blue. ‘Don’t say anything,’ she breathed.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Copper retorted. ‘He knows we’re in here.’
The pounding resumed, as if to underline the obviousness of that statement. ‘Open! Open, you thieves.’
‘I’m going to open the door,’ Copper said.
Pearl clung to her arms to stop her. ‘Please, no. He’ll kill me.’
‘I don’t care if he kills you,’ Copper said grimly, ‘but I don’t want him to break down my front door.’ She shook Pearl off and unlocked the door.
The man who burst in was large and very angry. ‘Where my money?’ he snarled at Pearl. But Pearl had retreated behind Copper’s back, whimpering; and Copper found herself facing the full wrath of Petrus. The photographs Copper had seen hadn’t shown his face, which was remarkably ugly and suffused with rage. ‘Give me my money!’
‘She doesn’t have your money,’ Copper said.
‘Yes! She steal my money.’ He made to dive around her so that he could grab Pearl, but Pearl dodged to the other side. ‘I kill you, putain.’
Copper suddenly remembered the fat bankroll Pearl had given her. There was probably some truth in Petrus’s accusation. Almost in the same moment, however, she decided that she was damned if she was going to give the money back to him. ‘She doesn’t have your money,’ she repeated. ‘I’ve got it.’
Petrus paused, staring at her warily with yellow eyes like a lion’s. ‘You got it?’
‘Yes. And I’m not giving it back to you. She’s paid her rent with it and it’s mine now.’
‘You crazy,’ he spat. ‘Give me.’
‘I don’t think so. You’re going to leave right now – and if you show your face here again, I’m calling the police.’
He made another grab at Pearl. ‘Call the police. She is a thief.’
Copper, getting angry now, pushed Pearl behind her again. ‘You are worse. You forced her to inject cocaine.’
‘I force her? That putain on her knees every day, begging me for coca. Eh, p’tite? Look what I bring you.’ He held out a little fold of paper. ‘You want this, eh? Come, I give it to you.’
Copper felt Pearl’s hands clutching at her convulsively. ‘Pearl doesn’t want it.’
‘Oh, yes, she want it.’ He grinned. ‘Eh, p’tite?’ He unfolded the paper, showing the white powder it contained. Pearl whimpered. ‘By now you want it very much, eh? Come and get it.’
‘I’ll tell the police everything,’ Copper said, holding tight on to Pearl to stop her from moving. ‘How you got her hooked. The photographs, the beatings – everything.’
‘You think you brave, Mam’selle? You don’t know who I am.’
‘I know you’re a drug dealer and a bully. I’ve faced bigger bullies than you, Monsieur. Now get out.’
He spat at her feet. ‘Va te faire enculer.’
‘Get out of here.’ She knocked the paper envelope out of his hand, scattering the cocaine.
He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. There was a snick and a long, sharp blade was suddenly protruding from his fist. ‘Now you see that I am a serious man. Understand? She come back with me now. She belong to me.’
‘She’s not going anywhere.’ Copper watched the flick knife intently, her heart racing. She had been brought up in Brooklyn and she’d seen the scarred faces – and occasionally, the funerals – that resulted from angry men wielding knives. But she was not going to give Pearl back to this man. ‘She’s staying with me. Put the knife away.’
‘Oui, I put the knife away. In your throat.’ He took a step forward, his eyes narrowing. ‘Get out of my way.’
Copper held her ground, her face set. ‘You don’t scare me. Scram, buster. Or I’m calling the cops right now.’
‘You give me the money. And you give me that p’tite putain.’
She was about to retort again when he suddenly struck out at her – not with the knife, but with his other hand. His fist slammed into her forehead, knocking her backwards, stars exploding in front of her eyes. Dazed and hurt, she was aware of Pearl screaming in terror. She struggled to focus on what was happening. As though in a nightmare, she saw that Petrus had seized Pearl by her hair and was dragging her out of the door. In a moment, he would be gone, and so would Pearl. Gone to an ugly fate.
Until that moment, Copper hadn’t allowed any of it to seem real. Pearl’s bruises, her needle-scars, her shivering and vomiting, all of it had been something she preferred not to recognise. She hadn’t quite believed any of it. But now, with her head splitting from the impact of Petrus’s fist, it was real. Without thought, she picked a heavy Lalique ashtray off the table and swung it at the back of Petrus’s head.
She was still stunned and the blow was clumsy. The ashtray glanced off his shaven skull, making him lurch, but not knocking him down. He turned to her with a roar of pain and fury, teeth showing in a snarl. He raised the knife, ready to slash at her face.
But her head was clearing fast. She lifted the ashtray again and with an accuracy honed in a thousand baseball games in the park with her brothers, slammed the glass ashtray between Petrus’s blazing amber eyes. This time there was a solid thud, and this time he went down, blood spouting from his nostrils.
‘Oh Jesus, you’ve killed him,’ Pearl gasped, looking down at the inert figure.
‘Nope, he’s just lights out. Nobody socks me and gets away with it,’ Copper said grimly, bending over Petrus and retrieving the knife from his nerveless fingers. ‘Mother of God, will you look at that thing.’ She found the catch and carefully folded it closed. Petrus was by now groaning and stirring into life. He clutched at his streaming nose and tried to sit up. ‘Uh-uh,’ Copper said, poising the ashtray over his face again. ‘Want some more?’
‘No,’ he said, sputtering blood. He shrank away from Copper’s forbidding expression, holding up a shaking hand. ‘No more.’
‘Listen to me, tough guy. Next time you show your ugly face around here, I’ll bust it open. And I’ll call the cops to haul your sorry carcass to the pen. Understand me?’
‘Oui,’ he said thickly, bloodshot eyes fixed on the ashtray.
‘Stay away from Pearl from now on. She’s out of your life and you’re out of hers. Got that?’
&n
bsp; ‘Oui,’ he grunted. ‘I understand.’
‘Okay.’ Copper backed away. ‘You can go now.’
By now, a curious crowd of neighbours had gathered in the lobby. They watched as Petrus stumbled out, clutching his injured nose. ‘Bravo, Madame,’ someone called. There was laughter. Copper bade them all goodnight and locked her door.
‘He would have done me in,’ Pearl said. ‘That’s the bravest thing I ever saw.’
‘I grew up in a tough neighbourhood. Now, let’s get you to bed.’
Six
Over the next few days, Copper helped Pearl through her withdrawal symptoms. She shivered constantly and cried from pains all over her body. All she wanted was milky tea and Copper soon became an expert in making this English concoction, which was oddly comforting in its peculiar way.
She learned a bit more about Pearl’s background. Like Copper herself, she’d grown up in a poor neighbourhood – the East End of London.
‘My real name’s not Pearl at all. It’s Winifred Treadgold. But I’m still waiting to tread on any gold,’ she added wryly. She’d been a pretty child, which hadn’t gone unnoticed. An older man named Uncle Alf had started ‘messing about’ with her before her twelfth birthday. By thirteen, she’d had a backstreet abortion and her childhood – such as it had been – was over.
Work had been an escape. She’d started out in a laundry, putting in ten-hour days and sleeping huddled next to the washtubs with the other girls, enduring the choking fumes of lye in exchange for warmth. Other men had followed Uncle Alf. She’d learned that she could use them, as they used her.
Hitler’s Luftwaffe had pounded the East End relentlessly during the Blitz, killing thousands and leaving much of the city a wasteland. She’d come to Paris as soon as it was liberated, lured by the bright lights that no longer shone in battered old London, hoping for a career in modelling or a chorus line, and had fallen into the clutches of Petrus. It had taken only a few weeks before she was a slave to his needle and descending into the degradation that he had planned for her.
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